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My Thailand Travelogue

Qazi MamoonIt was a
little past 3 in the afternoon when our plane landed at the Suvarnabumi
International Airport in Bangkok. I had left my room at around 8.30 in
the morning, and here I was now.

Airports are always a nice sight
for me, reflecting a unique blend of Westernisation, modern
architecture, culture and a great centre for tax-free shopping. I would
really love the day, when I could step inside a shop or two, with the
weight of my wallet promising me great stuff and experiences. However, I
still have a lot of years to go till then. I breezed past the high-end
shops while staring inside to get a glimpse of all the colours of
creation.

Finally,
after immigration, and shiny Visa-On-Arrival, I walked my way to the
arrival section of the airport, until I finally saw my cousin. “Welcome
to Thailand!”, said my lean cousin, ushering me into a big bus.

A
guy handed me a ticket with a smile, and joined his hands in the form
of a much familiar ‘namaste’. This traditional greeting is known as the
wai, where you press your hands together as is in prayer and bow
slightly.Among Thais, there are strict rules of hierarchy that
dictate how and when the wai should be given. Inferiors salute superiors
first and people do not wai service people or street vendors. The
higher your hands go, the more respectful you are. I nodded back in
respect and went to my seat.

I read the ticket, that he gave,
with concentration, and noticed a peculiar thing. The date had a 2553
instead of the usual 2010. A mistake, I thought. I later came to know
that the Thai Calendar is 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar.
This date didn’t seem that strange to me because of my familiarity with
our own Islamic calendar. Thai calendar is solar as compared to the
Islamic calendar which is lunar. I also learnt that Thai dates in
English are often written as B.E., short for “Buddhist Era”.

Speaking
of Buddhism, Thai culture is heavily influenced by Buddhism. Thai
temples known as wats, with plenty of gold and easily identifiable with
their style of multicoloured, pointy roofs. The Buddhist monks are meant
to avoid the temptation of women, and they do not touch women or take
things from women’s hands. The monks are not allowed to accept money.
Amazing. Good for them.

There was this particular guy from Poland
sitting with me in a bus today. He was bald, well-built and
particularly reddish for my taste. After striking up a conversation, I
received all sorts of crazy information, that I think made me more wiser
than I was this morning, running after a taxi.

This guy works in
Petronas (Malaysian oil company), in an offshore plant near Myanmar. We
talked about a lot of issues, ranging from weather to highly sensitive
issues like religion. Mysteriously, he seemed well informed about quite a
lot of things, particularly the history of India, Pakistan and the
stuff going on in Kashmir. He even poked me when he saw a rare
occurrence of a magnificent mosque on the way, and then smiled… I smiled
back.

I keep my distance, being careful enough not to extend the
conversation upto the point where volcanoes usually line up to burst
the heat out, the point of no return in religious talk. I had to try and
talk to him, but within the comfort zones. It ended with a polite
goodbye from my side and cheek-wide smile from him. Hoping to see him
around (not that I would recognise him but I just hope).

Coming
back, Thai people are majority Buddhists, with a few Muslim minorities
here and there. Buddhism is thus everywhere, part of the culture,
cuisine and crowd. The rest comprise of red-skinned people, from
countries such as Russia, Germany and even Israel. (Unlike Malaysians,
Thai people don’t have any trouble with the Israeli people). I sighted
an Israeli couple, scribbling away their immigration related papers.

People
in Thailand look astonishingly different from the familiar Chinese,
Indians, and the Malay faces which I constantly encounter in Malaysia
where I study. The second surprise was their language, which an
untrained ear may take for a song played on some kind of ghostly
instrument. The language isn’t exactly Chinese, is nowhere near to it
actually. It reminds me of the similarity between our own mother
tongue(s) Kashmiri and Urdu; they are just not the same my Kashmiri
brethren.

Unlike here in Kashmir, horns are used judiciously. It
was amazing to see everyone following traffic rules. Back in the valley
of the saints, the chaos looks more or less organised, as men, chicken
and vehicles wiggle past on the roads without care.

After
travelling for around two more hours in the bus, we finally arrived in
Pattaya. Pattaya is a beach resort city, filled with Russians and
outsiders who were holidaying. The first thing I did there was climb a
Tuk-Tuk, the famous transport of Thailand, which bears quite a striking
resemblance to our “Khataare-Auto”. Only that it is as big as a
Tata-Sumo, and can seat around 10 people and many more standing.

Early
the following morning, my cousin and I took a taxi to “The Million
Years Stone Park and Pattaya Crocodile Farm”. It is like a living museum
of natural beauty and exotic animals. I had a chance to watch a live
crocodile show, and click some pictures with really big tigers. The
tigers were chained of course, but not behind any barriers. Scary.

Later
that day, we went to the “Elephant Sanctuary”. This was my first time
when I felt and smelt an elephant’s trunk. They also had a cool show
there, with local dance, historical play, local martial arts
demonstration, and a cool elephant show as well. I managed to get a
picture clicked as two elephants lift me up high in the sky.

Thailand
is the most popular tourist destination in Southeast Asia, and for a
reason. You can find almost anything here: thick jungle as green as can
be, crystal blue beaches and food that can curl your nose hairs while
tap dancing across your taste buds. Well, correction about the food
part.

Thai
food is popular, and good to have if you are in Malaysia. Primarily
because Thailand meat is not Halal, and where-ever it is, there is pork
served side by side or alcoholic drinks. Even the so called fast-food
chains that we believe serve Halal food, don’t. Well, I would like to
point out to our Kashmiri Muslim community that the chicken isn’t Halal
at the KFC outlets in Delhi, or in any other part of India; at least not
in Select CityWalk mall. If you think it is, check with manager of the
outlet, he would be moving inside the outlet in a bossy manner.

As
a frequent traveller, I would suggest to eat as little, and as
nutritious as possible. Meats are a strict no, which includes chicken
from McDonalds, KFC or any other chain which your friends have told you
about. My trip to Thailand followed a similar rule. I did go to KFC for
my lunch and dinner, but I wasn’t particularly going to relish the birds
in two flavours of original and spicy. For the first couple of days, I
was seen eating a cupful of rice and a large mashed potato. Later, I had
my flesh cravings on a significant increase, and I changed my potatoes
to a small helping of fried fish. Fish is thus the new life saver.

After
getting my caloric supply right, I went into an internet parlour, which
promised of reasonable speed. I found a nice PC and opened the
web-browser. As a tech-aware person (something I am always involved in,
unlike my occasional hobby of writing), I felt a need to spy around. I
followed the wire from the keyboard and saw a small device attached to
it before it went inside the PC cabinet.

A keylogger, yes. Many
of you might not know what a keylogger is. A popular online resource
Wikipedia defines Key Logging as “the action of tracking (or logging)
the keys struck on a keyboard, typically in a covert manner so that the
person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being
recorded.” Typically, it is used to copy passwords and do all sort of
follow up stuff. I promptly stood up, and left. After this, my internet
ventures were managed by buying a prepaid wireless connection. Scary
Thailand.

You know what’s more scarier? Robbery. My cousin told
me about people getting drugged and robbed while travelling on overnight
buses. I remember my evenings in Kashmir, around 7 pm, very clearly. It
was the moment when time stopped in my house, the clocks bore an ugly
sight. 7 pm, the time for the local news in Kashmir, full of boring,
uninteresting stories. Everyday half an hour of my life, went into the
pathetic blabbering of boring incidents around the valley. I don’t blame
them, children always have much more interesting stuff to do.

Evening
news in Thailand is interesting, in fact it is spicy. Who stole what,
who killed whom, news about Russian tourists, girlfriends, scandals,
drugs, and drunken old men. Interesting.As I read on this T-Shirt somewhere:“Good men go to Heaven, bad men come to Thailand”